Letters

The Coleman Report: Recalling the Circumstances Of Its Release

To the Editor:

In an issue full of useful information about school desegregation, I
was dismayed by an article which perpetuates some of the dangerous
misinformation about the 1966 Coleman Report that has caused so much
damage to school reform over the years. ("Echoes of the Coleman Report," March
24, 1999).

The article says that "the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare quietly released" the report before a holiday "so it would
receive little notice," because it "cast doubt on the theory propounded
by civil rights groups that minority children were shortchanged by
their schools." The implication is that social science had proved that
this "theory" was false, and HEW was trying to cover this up. This is a
gross distortion of the facts.

As assistant U.S. commissioner of education for equal educational
opportunity during the Johnson administration, I was very much involved
in the struggle within the department concerning the release of the
report, and can set some of the record straight.

A major problem some of us had with the draft report submitted by
the Coleman group was that it seemed to state that school factors could
have little effect on student achievement, but the data presented only
showed that school factors measured in the study had little
effect. These data did not include most of the factors we thought were
negatively affecting minority children--for example, low expectations,
inferior curriculum, poor staff morale and training, disorderly
schools, and others--and they didn't show what could happen if poor
children were provided better schooling than the status quo reported in
the study.

That poor and minority children generally did poorly in school was
well-known before the study was done, and we felt that to issue a
report finding that "a child's family background" is a good "predictor"
of school achievement would only mislead people about our congressional
mandate to report to the nation "concerning the lack of availability of
equal educational opportunities."

I submitted a series of memorandums trying to get these (and other)
problems with the report corrected before the July 1966 deadline set by
Congress for release of the report, but only a few changes were made in
the summary and press release to try to reduce the damage we thought
might be caused by unwarranted generalizations about whether improving
schools could affect children's equal educational opportunity.

Unfortunately, after the report was published, it was (and still is)
generally interpreted in just the way we feared, with school officials
and politicians claiming that there is little they can do to improve
schooling for poor and minority children, because "science" has proven
that their low achievement is caused by their home background, and that
schools can do little about it.

By the late 1970s, this misuse of the Coleman data had become so
damaging to the cause of school reform that I persuaded the sociologist
James S. Coleman to come to New York and repudiate these unwarranted
conclusions at a public meeting. This he generously did, producing a
news story that stated: "The notion that schools can't help poor
children overcome the effects of their family background was buried" at
the meeting, with Mr. Coleman helping in "shoveling it under," even
though his report "is often used in arguments that schools have little
effect on children" (Education USA, Nov. 5, 1979).

Sadly, this news has not permeated the educational policy and
research communities, or the media, because the misinterpretations of
the 1966 Coleman study and its history persist to this day.

David S. SeeleyProfessor of Education
College of Staten Island, CUNY
Staten Island, N.Y.

Parent Polls Show Interest in Schools

To the Editor:

A recent article painted an incomplete picture regarding parent
involvement in public schools ("Parents Express Scant Interest in Helping
Govern Schools," March 24, 1999). Despite the article's claim that
parents are not "very enthusiastic about parental involvement in school
governance," the Public Agenda survey reported on in fact found that 74
percent of parents are more involved in their children's education than
their own parents were.

The expanded online version of the poll points to the fact that a
majority of parents feel comfortable evaluating the quality of their
child's teachers, helping decide budget issues, and participating in
school management committees.

This confirms the findings of a poll commissioned by the National
PTA. Our study found that 91 percent of parents surveyed believe that
it is extremely important for parents to be involved in their
children's schools, and that 75 percent favor federal programs to help
schools get parents more involved with their children's education.

Other polls have also indicated that parents have a great interest
in school matters. Phi Delta Kappa, for example, conducted a poll with
the Gallup Organization in 1998 and found that a majority of parents
would like greater input in the allocation of school funds, the
selection and hiring of administrators and principals, and the choice
of the curriculum offered.

The National PTA hopes that in the future you will include the
results of a variety of studies when covering educational issues, in
order to provide more-balanced information to parents seeking greater
involvement in their children's education.

Lois Jean WhitePresident
National pta
Chicago, Ill.

K-12, College Plan: A Reality Check

To the Editor:

Charles B. Reed's thoughtful suggestions on cooperation between
universities and K-12 schools seem a less-than-adequate response to the
pressures created by declines in minority student enrollment following
the affirmative action debacle ("Taking
Action on K-12, University Cooperation," March 24, 1999).

Teachers are essential catalysts at the interface between students
and their respective schools, especially for the heterogeneous student
population in K-12 education. Yet, omitted from Mr. Reed's
prescriptions for the anticipated victories that he promises "will
occur in the classroom" after fruitful university and K-12
collaboration is any recognition that most public school teachers,
however well trained, are necessarily "reactors" rather than
"leaders."

They are expected to be system-dependent, team-playing, risk averse
participants in the largely authoritarian, hierarchical, bureaucratic
organizational structure of the typical school culture. The safest
behavior for teachers is to "do the right thing"--conform to school or
district policy--even when that may be harmful to students.

It requires professional judgment, independently exercised by a true
professional, to instead "do things right"--select from options chosen
to best meet identified and understood student needs. The overemphasis
on giving the same treatment for all, based on standardized-test scores
(used to measure both student "achievement" and teacher
"effectiveness"), encourages many students to prove their
competency rather than improve it.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities offer special inducements to
the top several percent of high school graduates, the signal to all the
others being, "You don't deserve an equal opportunity." The idea of
equal opportunity is a myth. Students have no control over how system
players react, even when they are willing to accept individual
responsibility for their success or failure.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead once quipped that if humans were
fish, we would have to discover water, an allusion to insensitivity to
"acceptable" practice. Colleges that want to improve minority student
enrollments need to look beyond platitudes and traditional, politically
acceptable but educationally deficient shibboleths. Mr. Reed's
suggestions do not seem sufficiently committed to finding viable
solutions to the damage that already has been done. It's time to
discover the water.

Ed MeyerFairfield, Conn.

Thank Microsoft for Records Leadership

To the Editor:

Re: Your March 3, 1999, article, "Gates Downloads a Proposal for Schools."
As the former chairwoman of the Exchange of Permanent Records
Electronically for Students and Schools Committee responsible for
development of the American National Standards Institute's standard for
student records, I feel it is important to correct a misconception
conveyed in the article's following statement:

"There are other, partially overlapping, initiatives to set technical
standards for software for the education market. One narrowly focused
standard, called Speedee Express, is used for applications that
transmit student transcripts between districts and--its original
purpose--between schools and colleges."

Our intent and focus when developing the Speedee Express student
record to meet the needs of elementary and secondary schools was to
provide a standard way of electronically conveying student information
that would enable its appropriate placement into instructional
programs, which goes well beyond transcripts. The ANSI-accredited
record format allows for the reporting of information related to
demographics, health, testing, academic history, and special program
participation.

It is very gratifying that Microsoft is incorporating the Speedee
Express data elements defined in the ANSI standard, because they were
established and are maintained by educators in a vendor-neutral
environment under the auspices of the ANSI Accredited Standards
Committee X12 for Electronic Data Interchange. Kudos to Microsoft for
its leadership.

Jill HansonEverett, Wash.

Science-Fair Item's Emphasis Is Wrong

To the Editor:

I was surprised to read your Take Note column headlined "Lead Findings" in the March 24, 1999,
issue. The story (a 6th grader's lead testing and findings) clearly
implies that the extraordinary findings of a scientific experiment
should in some way compensate for a rather ordinary experiment. The
story is a newsworthy one, and the student should be praised for her
confidence in her unusual findings. But suggesting that unusual
findings should be used as an indication of quality in a science-fair
project is a dangerous message.

We have already seen that pressure for certain results (publishable
data, achievement on test scores) has a tendency to pull emphasis away
from the quality of the process. As educators, I believe that we should
be emphasizing the ingenuity and creativity that are promoted by
science fairs, instead of joining in the national obsession for
results.

D. SnowOak Park, Ill.

Direct Instruction Raises Achievement

To the Editor:

Why don't teachers and school administrators let go of their
ideological concerns and embrace a program like Direct Instruction that
works in the classroom ("A Direct
Challenge," March 17, 1999)? Why isn't improving student
achievement their one and only goal?

In your article, Lawrence J. Schweinhart, the research-division
chairman for the High/Scope Educational Foundation, admits that Direct
Instruction raises achievement "if that were the only goal in the
world. ... " What other possible goals could there be? And why are
teachers so overly sensitive that they can't take a little constructive
criticism regarding their teaching performance? Again, improving
instruction and achievement does not seem to be their goal.